For example, here's the latest from the National Caucus of Black State Legislators. The FCC, its latest press release warns, is taking up Internet regulations "that many civil rights advocates fear could impede broadband adoption and could, instead, lead to increased digital disenfranchisement of our nation’s minority and low-income communities." And to the House and Senate leadership, NCBSL wrote the following:

"Much of the net neutrality debate has more to do with providing high-end users (such as the peer-to-peer traffickers who account for 20% of Internet use) with access to large amounts of bandwidth at the expense of everyday users. Thus we are concerned that unmanaged networks would leave the underserved with increased costs and diminished service."

It should be noted that higher costs with less service is exactly what net neutrality advocates warn could happen with unfairly "managed" networks—priority access deals in which content providers would pay more for better network flow, or consumers would pay more for IP video, voice, or online gaming, or they'd pay more when content companies passed their priority access costs along.

But when it comes to the priority access question, the MMTC says bring it on. In fact, the group uses some of the same wording as AT&T's filing on the issue (e.g., "voluntary arrangements").

"Under the terms of this proposed rule, broadband Internet access service providers would be prohibited from entering into voluntary arrangements by which content, application, or service providers agree to pay for enhanced or prioritized services," MMTC writes. "While phrased as a 'nondiscrimination' rule, this proposal could have the effect of requiring broadband providers to recover the costs of their next generation networks entirely from end-user consumers because broadband providers would be denied the flexibility to charge Internet companies for enhanced or prioritized services."

Make-or-break

To this mainstream civil rights wisdom comes Commissioner Clyburn, an African-American woman who clearly thinks differently here. In her speech, Clyburn praised the work of Jonathan Moore, Founder & CEO of Rowdy Orbit IPTV, whose got his entertaining "life-in-the-hood" animated series started on a hope and a prayer.

"The reality is that minority content is almost impossible to get distributed through traditional channels," Clyburn noted. But with an initial investment of $526, Moore put his video network online. "Had the costs of access been much greater, however—say if he had to buy his way into priority status on one or more networks—Rowdy Orbit may never have seen the light of day," Clyburn added.

Then she lobbed this concern into the crowd. "To my surprise, most of the filings submitted and public statements issued by some of the leading groups representing people of color on this matter have been silent on this make-or-break issue," Clyburn confided. "There has been almost no discussion of how important—how essential—it is for traditionally underrepresented groups to maintain the low barriers to entry that our current open Internet provides."

She pointed out that, historically, the main concern for most minority media advocacy groups has been (up until now), eliminating barriers of entry for entrepreneurs, such as in radio and television. Minorities own 7% of licensed radio stations and only 3% of full power television signals. "These numbers are appalling, and they show no sign of improving in the near future."

The Internet could change these percentages, Clyburn noted, adding that minorities are "faced with one of those rare moments in time where a sea change is actually possible for groups that have traditionally been marginalized by the structure of the communications marketplace."

Or not:

I fear that if we miss the boat on this opportunity, the Internet will end up becoming media ownership 2.0. I do not buy the argument that all regulation is
dangerous, and I am confident that you do not either. I believe in smart regulation, which is why, for example, we have begun a process that will account for reasonable network
management. But I hope we can work together to create strong rules that do not cede
control of the most significant communications advancement in our lifetimes. By sitting this one out, or worse, by throwing up roadblocks that will enable what is now "our" Internet to become "their" Internet, we simply would be reinstating the very kinds of
imbalanced structures that we have been attempting for decades to dismantle in other contexts.

The dominant feeling

Mignon Clyburn is turning out to be someone other than what many observers expected. She's certain swimming in a different direction on this issue than most civil rights advocates, including the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and 100 Black Men (big exception: the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which Clyburn mentioned in her comments, is pro-net neutrality). And in doing so she's also defying the worried predictions of prominent net neutrality advocates.

"Behind closed doors, just about everyone I've talked with—right across the board—has been deeply concerned that Ms. Clyburn will be a disaster for the public interest," wrote prominent media reform advocate Sascha Meinrath following her nomination by President Obama in May. "The dominant feeling is that she is extremely tight with the telecom incumbents and that having her on the FCC will all but ensure a stalemate that will prevent any meaningful telecom reforms from being passed."

And Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky, noting the pro-incumbent telco tilt of the South Carolina Public Service Commission, where she previous served, warned that "there will doubtless be pressure on her to follow the policies that veteran telecom attorneys from the region acknowledge she has long supported."

We asked Brodsky what he thought of Friday's talk at the MMTC.

"I think we were right to raise the questions early on, and now the Commissioner's speech on the subject, speaks for itself (as do her other comments on the topic.)," he told us. "Even more importantly, she brought into more public attention the fact that not all minority groups are opposed to Net Neutrality, citing the National Hispanic Media Coalition's comments. That, to me, is the most significant aspect of her speech."

Ditto, said Meinrath. "I think Commissioner Clyburn was particularly courageous in calling folks out on this issue," he told us. But: "The real key will be how the Commission votes on these issues, the boldness of the national broadband plan (which appears to be floundering), and the ways in which the Commission deals with the backlog of numerous key proceedings that are detrimentally impacting the state of telecommunications across the country."

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Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar

21 Reader Comments

Sounds like Clyburn was right to call out these groups. It feels like some of these political minority groups are looking out for their own interests as a political group (insuring future funding from corps.) rather than looking out for the minority group they're supposed to be representing. This is what scares me at night.

"I fear that if we miss the boat on this opportunity, the Internet will end up becoming media ownership 2.0"

++++

I couldn't say it any better. How can people believe that without monopolistic control capability that no one will build/expand/upgrade high capacity, high performance networks? For $50-100 per month per subscriber just to provide a (modestly) fat data pipe I am sure there are no shortage of takers.

If Verizon or Comcast can't make an honest living off of this then they really need to look at improving their corporate efficiency not more customer reaming....

Net Neutrality has always amused me. The ISPs have been claiming that Google and other net companies have basically been getting a free ride off of them (ignoring that they already pay).

But in reality, isn't the ONLY reason you pay your ISP BECAUSE of those that are 'getting a free ride'? In reality, if it wasn't for them, no one would be paying the ISPs anything. The ISPs are the ones that should be thankful for Google and others on the Internet, not the other way around.

I read the entire article and I can't for the life of me understand why "minorities" (honestly getting sick of that moniker) would oppose net neutrality. I can't even understand why "they" would use something like "minority" status to push an anti-NN agenda (or even a pro-NN agenda).

That all being said, I think I can blame my misunderstanding of this issue on the fact that I live in the Pacific Northwest, where there isn't much racial tension or even racial "acceptance", if you will.

Up here we're all just "human" and colors are rarely seen.

If someone could please try to hammer their point home for me in a different manner, I would greatly appreciate it, because I just don't "get it" based on the article.

"Much of the net neutrality debate has more to do with providing high-end users (such as the peer-to-peer traffickers who account for 20% of Internet use) with access to large amounts of bandwidth at the expense of everyday users. Thus we are concerned that unmanaged networks would leave the underserved with increased costs and diminished service."

Although the article addressed it, this interpretation is what concerns me. This either is an ignorant interpretation of what Net Neutrality laws are for, or an intentional mis-interpretation.

Net Neutrality is not designed to prohibit current models of quality of service controls, especially on a private network. Net Neutrality is designed to prevent incumbent telecoms from erecting paywalls to competing services.

I'll cite two examples.

Company buys a point to point fiber connection from site A to site B. The company is able to do whatever they want with this fiber, net neutrality should not interfere with a private network such as the example above, as there is only one customer, and a fiber provider.

Example Two:

Comany A has a large network with many customers. Company A has an internal video service, Crappy Videos on Demand (CVD). Company A creates a 2nd tier service,an IP tunnel that gives all of the other video services, Netflix, You Tube, Amazon, iTunes, the lowest quality of service level on thier network. CVD gets the best quality of service level on thier network. Compeditiors to CVD will not be removed from this second tier service unless the compeditor pays company A to have traffic from thier service removed.

This kind of artificial paywall is what Net Neutrality laws are designed to prevent.

Time Warner already tried this with iTunes movie and TV downloads, as they are competing with TW's on Demand services. Incredulously, apple uses Akamai, TW subscribers don't even go off net to get previously requested files, they go to TW's co-located Akamai servers. TW used a dns hack, throttling iTunes files by DNS entry. Akamai responded in kind, by changing the static DNS entires to unique DNS entires for each DNS query. Circumventing TW's throttling attempts.

Everything will remain status quo, until deep packet inspection is a standard feature on most network routers, this is around the corner in the next 5-10 years (depending on the general state of the economy, upgrade cycles, growth of networks etc).

Hopefully we'll have decent Net Neutraility laws in place before then.

Originally posted by KitsuneKnight:Net Neutrality has always amused me. The ISPs have been claiming that Google and other net companies have basically been getting a free ride off of them (ignoring that they already pay).

But in reality, isn't the ONLY reason you pay your ISP BECAUSE of those that are 'getting a free ride'? In reality, if it wasn't for them, no one would be paying the ISPs anything. The ISPs are the ones that should be thankful for Google and others on the Internet, not the other way around.

So true.It's kind of like the cable companies claiming that they should be paid to carry over the air stations.Without that content, they'd have no subscribers.

Originally posted by Jackattak:Up here we're all just "human" and colors are rarely seen.

If someone could please try to hammer their point home for me in a different manner, I would greatly appreciate it, because I just don't "get it" based on the article.

Hey I'm from the Pac. NW too and the reason colors are rarely seen is that we are the whitest region in the U.S. There just isn't much diversity here and it turns a lot of people off to the area and I can sympathize.

The reason minority groups are supposedly against NN has been talked about in earlier articles but they should do a better job at referencing them. They did link to one in the latter half of the article though:

They touch on some of the issues, those being related to ISP contractors whom employ a large minority workforce. They say with NN in place these work groups will get less work in order to get the minority groups on board with an anit-NN stance. Whether or not they have any merit is still to be determined.

Thanks for pointing me to that other Ars article, one8kevin. That helps, as did your explanation of ISP contractors possibly taking a hit (not that I'm still on board with these "minority" groups, but it helps to at least understand what they're bickering about).

On the Pacific Northwest being the "whitest" region in the US:

I've heard that, too. Whoever coined the phrase didn't live in Portland, OR, where there are more people "of color" (i.e. from all over the world) than anywhere else I've ever lived in the entire world, except Amsterdam. (For reference I've lived in five continents for at least one year per continent).

Originally posted by Jackattak:I've heard that, too. Whoever coined the phrase didn't live in Portland, OR, where there are more people "of color" (i.e. from all over the world) than anywhere else I've ever lived in the entire world, except Amsterdam. (For reference I've lived in five continents for at least one year per continent).

I'm in Portland too and I'll agree with you halfway since you have more worldly experience than me, especially considering when I was driving around the other day and saw a very ethnically diverse range of kids at some elementary school in SE. Looked nothing like the group of kids I went to school with 15-20 years ago in the same area. Nothing.

But two recent cities I've been to: Vancouver BC, and Chicago still tell me Portland still has a way to go.

Originally posted by Jackattak:Thanks for pointing me to that other Ars article, one8kevin. That helps, as did your explanation of ISP contractors possibly taking a hit (not that I'm still on board with these "minority" groups, but it helps to at least understand what they're bickering about).

There is also the issue Clyburn brought up in her argument - barriers to entry.

Most minority interest groups are being used as pawns in the NN game, precisely because they don't believe they have a real dog in this fight. This frees them to have their opinions shaped by bigger groups with fatter wallets.

quote:

On the Pacific Northwest being the "whitest" region in the US:

I've heard that, too. Whoever coined the phrase didn't live in Portland, OR, where there are more people "of color" (i.e. from all over the world) than anywhere else I've ever lived in the entire world, except Amsterdam. (For reference I've lived in five continents for at least one year per continent).

I've visited Portland and spent some time in the PacNW. I've also lived on five continents, several years at a time and oddly enough, I have an office in Amsterdam. My experience is the almost opposite of yours.

Originally posted by Jackattak:Thanks for pointing me to that other Ars article, one8kevin. That helps, as did your explanation of ISP contractors possibly taking a hit (not that I'm still on board with these "minority" groups, but it helps to at least understand what they're bickering about).

There is also the issue Clyburn brought up in her argument - barriers to entry.

Most minority interest groups are being used as pawns in the NN game, precisely because they don't believe they have a real dog in this fight. This frees them to have their opinions shaped by bigger groups with fatter wallets.

This is what I was assuming. Thanks for the clarification!

quote:

On the Pacific Northwest being the "whitest" region in the US:

I've heard that, too. Whoever coined the phrase didn't live in Portland, OR, where there are more people "of color" (i.e. from all over the world) than anywhere else I've ever lived in the entire world, except Amsterdam. (For reference I've lived in five continents for at least one year per continent).

I've visited Portland and spent some time in the PacNW. I've also lived on five continents, several years at a time and oddly enough, I have an office in Amsterdam. My experience is the almost opposite of yours.

Interesting!!!

I should clarify that indeed, Portland is quite "white", I just can't see it being "the whitest" region in the US with all the ethnic diversity I see around me. I mean, my office alone is 33% "other".

But anyway, I get both your point and one8kevin's. Sorry for getting too far off-topic.

EDIT: I'd be interested in knowing who you work for, considering our all-too-similar worldly adventures.

Treating minorities differently is NOT non-discrimination. It is discrimination, by the very definition.

Treating everybody gives everybody the same opportunity. Trying to favor one or more groups at the expense of others does NOT give everybody the same opportunity.

Net Neutrality is a must. Some kinds of internal traffic management may be useful or even necessary for some ISPs... as long as it does not involve deep packet inspection. The latter is a clear invasion. Nobody could do that for phone calls! Why should the internet be any different? The proper role of ISPs is as common carrier. Not as content providers, not as Internet police.

Trying to get ISPs to police content on their networks is morally and ethically exactly the same as asking Telcos to eavesdrop on telephone conversations to make sure the content is "proper". The only reasonable answer to that is "Hell no!"

And yet, as a practical matter a divided internet would probably not be possible without packet inspection. It's a bad approach, all the way around.

My biggest concern about Ms. Clyburn is she tends to say whatever makes the group she is talking to happy, and then does something different later. I personally don't trust her as an advocate for NN as she mostly just sided with the telecoms here in SC.

We'll see, but I wouldn't put alot of hope in her voting for anything that has real teeth to it for protecting NN.

I'm assuming, as well, for no other reason than this is what interest groups do. Not sure of which ideological line to hew? Pick the one that means more money.

I do find the Clyburn's barrier-to-entry argument to be somewhat compelling.

quote:

I should clarify that indeed, Portland is quite "white", I just can't see it being "the whitest" region in the US with all the ethnic diversity I see around me. I mean, my office alone is 33% "other".

But anyway, I get both your point and one8kevin's. Sorry for getting too far off-topic.

How many of your colleagues are involved in interracial relationships? To me, that's a fairly easy way to get a bead on how accepting a culture is of minorities. People have a tendency to say and act all the right ways in public and may have diverse friends that they don't think about in terms of race but things change when your daughter brings home a black/Hispanic/Asian guy.

quote:

EDIT: I'd be interested in knowing who you work for, considering our all-too-similar worldly adventures.

Long story short, grew up as a military brat, then went Army myself, last ten years of civilian life working for different IOs/NGOs - the last couple years with MSF. You?

Allowing high-speed Internet providers to throttle P2P protocols is one thing, but allowing them to favor certain providers of streaming video over others due to sponsorship deals would quickly create a harmful non-competitive environment, and the FCC is clearly right to stand fast against such a development.

If, at some point, cities typically had something like 50 mom-and-pop high-speed Internet providers to choose from, the way it was with dial-up Internet, having this kind of non-neutral service as a cheap alternative would be beneficial, but not when it would be the only choice.

Trying to get ISPs to police content on their networks is morally and ethically exactly the same as asking Telcos to eavesdrop on telephone conversations to make sure the content is "proper". The only reasonable answer to that is "Hell no!"

Nobody except the NSA, FBI and whoever else feels like violating your right to private communications. So the telco doesn't do it; they just let everyone else do it.

quote:

signal11

People have a tendency to say and act all the right ways in public and may have diverse friends that they don't think about in terms of race but things change when your daughter brings home a black/Hispanic/Asian guy.

to ignore that son or daughter might bring home a caucasian is racist all by itself. I'm pretty sure that's not what you intended, but.....

Originally posted by John Savard:Allowing high-speed Internet providers to throttle P2P protocols is one thing, but allowing them to favor certain providers of streaming video over others due to sponsorship deals would quickly create a harmful non-competitive environment, and the FCC is clearly right to stand fast against such a development.

NO, allowing p2p to be throttled is NOT a thing different from streaming video. These days it can be EXACTLY the same thing. Many legitimate and legal apps are starting more and more to use P2P distribution to assist in content distribution, application updates, etc, mainly because it decreases their end bandwidth costs. Nonetheless, while P2P may have started out with a majority leaning into sketchy territory, it has grown up significantly. These days there is no way an ISP could be certain a P2P packet is coming from a legit World of Warcraft update or an illegal p2p download without deep packet inspection, and even then the chunks of data on a p2p network are meaningless from any particular source because it may only be a small chunk of the whole file. The media and the public has been trained to respond to p2p as if it's only for pirates, but they don't realize just how deep into consumer software even p2p has been integrated.

Originally posted by Doc12:"I fear that if we miss the boat on this opportunity, the Internet will end up becoming media ownership 2.0"

++++

I couldn't say it any better. How can people believe that without monopolistic control capability that no one will build/expand/upgrade high capacity, high performance networks? For $50-100 per month per subscriber just to provide a (modestly) fat data pipe I am sure there are no shortage of takers.

If Verizon or Comcast can't make an honest living off of this then they really need to look at improving their corporate efficiency not more customer reaming....

This in spades, the trouble with modern media and modern corporate business is their monopolistic business model requires alot of upkeep if they tried to compete with more options and cut the fat out of CEO pay, redundant office management ,streamline the managerial process, focus on offering more not more for less they could be making more money...but they want the dino biz model and nothing else....